Faith
by ArtsyChick
Summary: "She believes he protects her. But he wouldn't need to protect her if he would stop dragging her head-on into danger." Tag to 6x11.


**A/N: **So I started writing this around the same time as my other story, _Remnants, _and I honestly have no idea why I've never published it because it's been sitting, finished, on my computer for ages. This is one of my favorite stories I've written, even though I didn't really like this episode (too many feelings). Anyway, especially with 8 new episodes on the way in two weeks (yay!), now seems as good a time as any to post this.

Enjoy!

* * *

The Doctor opens the door and they cart her through and let go. Rory runs to smash his shoulder into the door and she's fighting the conflicting urges to rush back out or cower in the corner.

She forces her eyes to focus, forces the voices from her head so she can see, and she and the Doctor stop. There is a little girl in the room, a little girl with ginger hair and endless patience. She's gazing steadily out the window.

Suddenly Amy is whisked back to the dream of childhood, a childhood spent waiting for the imaginary friend no one but she believed in. She remembers the icy night she spent sitting on her suitcase in her yard, how his tardiness only made her more determined to run away with him. Go dancing among the stars. If she was feeling particularly introspective, she would admit only to herself that perhaps she was a little bit in love with the dashing Doctor who swept her off her feet with wild promises of adventure and discovery. But only to herself.

Her head pounds. The voices come back with a fury, threatening to take her apart piece by piece, take her over, and she sinks to the ground. He sinks beside her and looks so very deeply in her eyes she already knows he's going to tell her something bad.

He tells her he can't save her. That there is absolutely nothing he can do to help her or save them. _I stole your childhood and now I have led you by the hand to your death…_

He tells her he knew. He knew this would happen, that she would die—here, now—because _this is what always happens. _

He tells her to forget her faith in him. That's what has brought them here, her deep, vibrant, undying faith in her Raggedy Doctor, no matter how many times he leaves her behind. _I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored…_

A quiet voice niggles at the back of her mind that he's saying all of this in order to save them and nothing else. That every word is a bold-faced lie, because the Doctor would never say these awful things to her without a very good reason. Without proving every single one of them wrong. But she can't hear that tiny whisper over the screaming voices reverberating in her head as her faith begins to waver.

A ghost of a smile crosses his lips. _The girl who waited for me… _And just as quickly it fades as he declares he is not a hero. Just a mad man in a box. And it's time for them to stop believing and start _seeing. _See the other as the person they really are.

He isn't a hero. Just a mad man in a box.

Her faith is fraying, disintegrating into a pile of threads and impossible dreams, but still it holds. He chucks her fondly on the chin and whispers her name. Her real name, not the fairytale the two of them have been clinging to for far too long.

_Amy Williams… it's time to stop waiting._

The words slice through the last string and sever her faith. She feels empty, hollow, and numb. All her life she has planted her faith in the Doctor, her hero, her savior, her very best friend, and just like that it's gone. Without her faith… who is she?

He cups her cheek and strokes her hair, the ethereal smile returning briefly to play across his lips, never reaching his eyes. He leans forward and gently presses a kiss to her forehead but she scarcely feels it, too consumed in the task of keeping the floodgates closed. Because if she doesn't, she's going to throw herself at him and feel her entire being recoil in anguish. To the man who has brought her lifelong comfort, she wants never to seek it in his arms again.

And yet… when it comes time to say goodbye, she can't help but hold on, loving him all the while, and crying. Because he's going to leave her again. She tells herself she won't wait for him anymore, that she's tired of having her heart stomped on by someone who will never apologize, but she knows it's only a lie to save her pride.

So she sits on the window ledge, arms draped around her knees as Rory cooks supper, and gazes upward at the glistening night sky. Waiting for the fairytale to begin again.

* * *

This is a disaster. A complete, total, and absolute mess. He's never been this slow to figure out the answer, never been this stupid to keep bumbling about an endlessly evolving and revolving maze.

Never been this close to losing the only two people he loves with no solution to save them.

He and Rory lift her stiff body in the air and dart through an open doorway, slamming it shut behind them. Rory runs to smash his shoulder in the door, leaving her in his charge, and he forces himself to let go of her so he can think.

But all thoughts derail when their eyes fall upon the little girl already in the room, wrapped in blue wool and sitting on a suitcase, her sunflower hair gleaming in the moonlight. With eyes only for the open window.

He's long since figured it out but the image truly rams home the awful idea of what he's done to this poor girl. What he's always doing to poor, innocent girls. And people. And planets.

Amy sinks to the floor, clutching her head in pain, and he drops beside her and reaches instinctively for her hand. Withdraws almost immediately as the faintest glimmer of an idea flickers in the shadows of his mind, relegated to the shadows because it defies all his selfish plans. That's why he calls upon it now and starts speaking before he has a chance to change his mind.

_There's nothing I can do. I can't help you. I can't save you._

She looks up at him with confusion in her bright hazel eyes. But he continues before she can truly protest, and before he can either.

_I stole your childhood and now I have led you by the hand to your death, but the worst thing is I knew. _He sees the tears streaking Donna Noble's face as she pleads with him not to. Sees Martha Jones's stiffened shoulders as she forces herself to walk away. _I knew this would happen._ Rose Tyler's chocolate eyes spilling over as she tearfully murmurs _I love you. _And hundreds of other people, bleeding, broken, and brought to ruin by the last of the Time Lords.

_This is what _always _happens._

He has to do this. Not just for Amy. For Rory. For River Song. For their unborn children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. For the dozens of companions that have come before and will come after.

For himself.

And if it saves the Ponds, he doesn't care how much it hurts.

He remembers the night they met, in that big empty house that was far too big and lonely for one ginger-haired little girl. _Forget your faith in me. _All the reasons he came back, all the reasons he stole her away. And he lies again and again.

_I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. _The words drip like acid from his lips, burning precious Pond where they land, and they sting all the more because there's a drop of truth in them. The more he speaks, the more she crumbles, and the more his own hearts break.

The corner of his mouth twitches. _Look at you, glorious Pond. _The twitch becomes a brief, slight smile. _The girl who waited for me. _Waiting. Always waiting. Forever waiting for her Raggedy Doctor, as much a fairytale as Amelia Pond. The guilt is almost unbearable, but he can still feel the strength of her faith, the determination to keep holding on. She believes he protects her. But he wouldn't need to protect her if he would stop dragging her head-on into danger. _I'm not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box. And it's time we saw each other as we really are._

A little girl sits before him. A little girl with sunflower hair and starbound eyes. But she isn't a little girl anymore, hasn't been a little girl for nearly fifteen years. All those years he made her wait, all the years she wasted on him, all the time she's lost that he can never bring back.

And he's never once apologized for it.

He looks into her eyes, chucks her gently on the chin. _Amy Williams..._

_It's time to stop waiting._

There are tears in her eyes but none in his, carefully concealed behind his cheap, constant veneer. He strokes her hair, cups her cheek, leans forward and presses a heartfelt kiss to her forehead. When he leans back and looks in her eyes again, he can see he's broken her. Like he breaks everyone, sooner or later.

She won't speak to him. And when she does it's cold and bitter and angry, but he knows he deserves it and so says nothing. She has every right to be angry. Still cuts him to the core, though.

He deposits them on their new front drive with their new red car—_You showed me a picture and said, 'This is my favorite car'—_and their bright blue door, and by then it's almost like he's forgiven. She pats the bonnet, an invitation to lean up beside her, and she looks at him with a heartbreaking question in her eyes.

_You're leaving, aren't you?_

He neatly side-steps the question by telling her there's a greater adventure here on Earth than a moon that isn't a moon that's made of not-honey and is slightly carnivorous. Naturally she doesn't believe him, but he doesn't want to play this game anymore. Dragging this gorgeous young woman across the universe without any concern for her safety… he doesn't want to see her face when she really breaks.

Naturally, she doesn't care. But, when it really looks like goodbye, she pulls him in for a hug, wraps her arms around his shoulders and trails her fingers down the back of his head. He squeezes her tightly, closing his burning eyes and burying them in her soft, warm shoulder, focusing all of his attention on the single, solid heartbeat thumping steadily against his. He wants to hold on to this humany-wumany feeling because, when he does, he feels just a little bit alive. But he lets her go.

She's crying, and he is too, but they're both trying to smile and laugh it off, desperately trying to fool the other with false cheeriness. It's a lie of course, but it seems like that's all he does anymore—lie to the only people who matter.

He turns around. He steps inside. He closes the door. In six steps he's at the console, and two later he's flying away. Now he knows he's going to die, and he can only put off that inevitably fixed point for so long.

But at least Amy Pond is safe.

* * *

**A/N: **He's actually describing the Honey Moon from _A Christmas Carol... _:p


End file.
